Peter Rex, an entrepreneur, philanthropist, and thought leader who built a billion-dollar investment business from scratch in less than 7 years and now runs a technology company based in Seattle joins Enterprise Radio.

Tell me a little about your path and life journey in becoming the entrepreneur you are today.

Why do you believe that sticking to the traditional confines of society and rules of institutions such as education are not always the best path for an entrepreneur?

How do you think being self-taught in many areas benefited you?

Without a traditional background in business, what enticed you to start a career in it?

How can having a typical background help shape success in business? Can you share examples of how looking at business through a nonconforming perspective has shaped your success?

Peter Rex is the founder and CEO of Trustwork, a technology business driven to empower the global workforce and recreate the world’s economy. Trustwork’s mission fulfills deeply held desires from Peter’s childhood and is a byproduct of Peter’s life experience as a middle-class youth with an extreme drive to serve people of all nations.

Peter developed core elements of Trustwork’s vision while building a $1 billion integrated investment and operations company. He went from bootstrapping in 2005 as a construction worker to now having 400+ employees, $135mm in annual revenue, and $350mm of equity invested.

In 2015, Peter embarked on an 18-month investigation to understand how to apply his vision at the largest possible scale. He recognized the value that physically seeing local problems, opportunities, and cultural nuances would have in developing and executing a truly global strategy. His trip led him to 85 countries where he held over 600 meetings with business leaders, government officials, and everyday people.

Peter returned with his family to the United States having seen the potential in people across all geographies and socio-economic classes, and the extent to which they had been limited by lack of access to the new economy. He knew that the best investment would be in creating meaningful technology that would allow people throughout the economy to amplify their entrepreneurial drive and human ingenuity.

Trustwork’s initial focus is on recreating the “old economy” industries of real estate and construction, but will eventually empower every person in the global workforce.

Peter Rex lives with his wife and three children in Seattle and regularly operates in San Francisco, Dallas, Washington D.C., Los Angeles, and New York. He is a CPA and lawyer, and received a BA in philosophy and government from Georgetown University and a JD from Harvard Law School.